Former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen recently came off suspension and his days in the UFC are now over as “The American Gangster” has signed an exclusive multi year, multi-fight contract with Bellator.

The signing of Sonnen was announced by Bellator on Thursday evening.

“Chael is an incredible athlete that has competed at the very highest levels of the sport,” Bellator President Scott Coker said. “I know that he is going to continue to do just that here at Bellator. When we were in the process of signing him, Chael was adamant that he wants to compete in three divisions here. He already has unfinished business with Wanderlei Silva, but he also wants to fight guys like Tito Ortiz, Fedor Emelianenko and even Rory MacDonald at middleweight. These are all fights that I’d be very inclined to watch, so hopefully we can put some, if not all of these matchups together starting before the end of the year.”

Sonnen (29-14-1) will compete in Bellator in the light heavyweight division and he is 3-3 in his last six fights. His last fight came at the end of 2013 as he lost to former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans.

“I’m consistently blown away by the product and presentation that Bellator is bringing to the fans,” said Sonnen. “I’m not nearly done competing and I’m coming after everyone, everywhere. I’m not sticking to one weight class either, I fight at ‘Gangster Weight’ and nobody is safe.”

One Response

Interesting. There are some fun matchups for him in Bellator, King Mo comes to mind, of course, Tito Ortiz, Stephan Bonnar, next year Wanderli Silva, even have a contrasting style matchup against Melvin Manhoef. Anyway, I’m guessing that means goodbye to his WSOF commentating duties (lol).